What happens to consciousness when we die?
The question of what happens at death can be approached from different angles, ranging from the scientific to the religious. I would imagine that most people have wondered about it at some stage, because we will all face death eventually.
One relevant area for consideration is the accounts described in near death experiences.
Are they related to the oxygen deprivation which occurs or possible chemical causes? The bardo states described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead describe journeys beyond death. Do the dreaming states in this book and similar ones point to the dreaming states which occur in the process of dying. Even if one takes a complete materialist perspective it is not known how long it takes for the brain and dreaming states to exist.
Some people believe in immortality and others see death as the end. These are speculations, and I am an agnostic on that matter. But I am curious about what the experience of dreaming consciousness will be after death, even if it is an end. I think it will be of significance in some sense to our identity.
So, I am interested in other people's thoughts on the question of what becomes of consciousness at death?
One relevant area for consideration is the accounts described in near death experiences.
Are they related to the oxygen deprivation which occurs or possible chemical causes? The bardo states described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead describe journeys beyond death. Do the dreaming states in this book and similar ones point to the dreaming states which occur in the process of dying. Even if one takes a complete materialist perspective it is not known how long it takes for the brain and dreaming states to exist.
Some people believe in immortality and others see death as the end. These are speculations, and I am an agnostic on that matter. But I am curious about what the experience of dreaming consciousness will be after death, even if it is an end. I think it will be of significance in some sense to our identity.
So, I am interested in other people's thoughts on the question of what becomes of consciousness at death?
Comments (266)
When we wake up from this fainting, we will no longer be seeing anything from this world or the place we are in, we will not be listening to anyone else, we will move but we will not be able to see our hand, we will try to grab our chest and we will not feel it in any way. In short, we will be in total and complete darkness, and some processes will begin.
When we are dead, and if we are in the situation we are describing, we will not even know if the things that can satisfy our desires still exist, because all we will see is a black, a darkness. It will be as if we are now with our eyes closed, however, we will feel that our eyes are open.
I think we are 'non-conscious' after our death. I call it 'non-consciousness' because their is no meaning to consciousness in the realm of non-consciousness. It is different from unconsciousness because when we say somebody is unconscious we imply that their is a possibility of consciousness in this realm.
I hope that you get back to me if you die before me. I hope that I can manage to log into the site if I am up to it.Despite wondering if I would have been happier if I had been taller and better looking, I am still wondering if I will cope, or will struggle with missing my body if I survive beyond physical death.
Edit: apparently being in a coma/similar state of abnormality is not being 'clinically brain dead', the former just means you can't respond to stimuli or communicate and that there is nominal brain activity. The latter is true brain death (no detectable activity whatsoever) at which point the person is considered legally dead. No one has ever "came back" or recovered after true brain death they say.
I like your writing and would like to believe that what you are saying is true. I do believe in the importance of waking up, whether in another life or this one.
I am not sure about the idea that a life beyond this one would entail blackness. I have known too many black hole states and some strange dimensions. If my consciousness does survive death I hope to encounter colours and beyond the spectrum and multidimensory experiences in the oceanic depths, unchartered by the most of the living peoples.
Yes, sometimes it is hard to pay attention to the body as a being of consciousness in the material world. I have to admit that I sometimes become disheveled and forget to shave when I am busy wrangling with philosophical questions. But perhaps we might as well just grow long ,
scraggly beards and moustaches because we don't have full faces any longer, now that we wear masks in all social situations.
You say that we are not conscious after death. I am unsure if you are meaning to say that we cease to exist at all. It may seem obvious that we do not exist at all if not conscious but I make no ultimate presumptions. When I was a teenager I came across a Christian writer, J Phillips, suggesting that we exist as memories in God's mind after death. This was the first time in which I experienced the idea that life, as we know it, may end after earthly experiences and I was downhearted.
Your discussion of being brain dead is interesting. Although, of course, this is the perspective of those who declare the person to be brain dead.
Can we exist without a brain. I am inclined to think we need one, but I am a bit open minded in consider other possibilities.
Perhaps you could tell me more about parallel universes as a possibility beyond the mortality of the physical body.
That sounds reasonable to me and that would make us with one with the universe minus our egos that keep us separate.
This would possibly require a notion of neutrinos holding a record of our existence because it seems to assume there is an "I' that can be aware. If there is an "I" there must be matter that contains the "I".
I am amused by the religious notion of god and love as this also goes with wanting to maintain the separation of ego, rather them being one with god.
I am totally undecided about the afterlife thing. I watched shows done by men who claim to communicate with those who have crossed over. I think what these men did is very convincing about there being life after death and that we retain our egos and relationships. But I would not bet my life on our egos surviving our deaths. I have also experienced what appeared to be communications from those who have crossed over, adding to my belief that it is possible. I think statement is the most reasonable. We do not have enough information to believe this or that.
Yes, I am undecided about the whole possibility of life after death, but think about it a lot. It is such a difficult question, but I think it one worthy for the philosophers forum, and perhaps more importantly than mathematical puzzles, but not necessarily easier.
You suggest that at some point we wake up. This is not an established, so perhaps you could expand your point of view in a bit further detail.
My suspicion is that life is cyclical, and the microcosmic resembles the macrocosmic. We sleep, dream, and wake up, consciousness being a continuum of memory. The bigger sleep, death and birth, will be similar. What science calls genetics, would be a continuum of memory from previous life/death cycles. Basically, I believe the Universe is symmetrical in all respects. Clues to the macro can be found in observing the micro. This is what Daoists do. Interestingly, Hamlet's soliloquy alludes to this idea. I think that if we pass on with good memories, we will enjoy a nice deep sleep. The concept of Karma adopts a similar point of view.
Are you saying that life and death are given to us within cycles of learning? I keep an open mind to this possibility, but with an awareness that there is a lack scientific credibility to back up this view,
although it may be the case that scientists cannot grasp and put such a perspective under a microscope or within the structure of experiment. In other words, I would love to believe thhat you are suggesting is true, but there is a danger in accepting the possibility because it appeals to many of us.
I think that what you are saying is true on some level but even the fabric of thinking underlying science is tenuous. However,I am sure that the scientific thinkers on this site claim to have the last and final say upon truth, as the religious believers had the ultimate words, many centuries ago.
Yes, Life and Death are cycles of learning, and give meaning and understanding to life.
Science is limited to what it can measure. That which it cannot measure it simply assigns human traits, e.g. genes, cells, etc.
There is no reason not to believe in the timelines of memory (brain waves?) and every reason to embrace it. Meaning in life is precious.
In my understanding, consciousness = an evolving process of self organization, and everything in the universe belongs to a process of self organization. So when you die, your component parts are appropriated to something else's self organization. That this should result in a worse experience then the present is entirely an assumption, in my opinion.
Yes, I see what you mean about a definition of consciousness. For the purposes of my present discussion the understanding of consciousness which I will adopt is: a meaningful sense of knowiedge, based primarily but not exclusively, on personal experience.
However, looking at it again, you say that
'when you die, your component parts are appropriated to something else's self organisation.' I wonder what this would mean: cosmic recycling?
What else? :smile:
This end is a personal condition. Something that will happen no matter what tricky moves I might make.
So, on one level, it is odd to make it about the world. The world seems content to have me pass.
I think the physical part of us dies but a lot of our past work, our ideas, some of our desires/fears, live on through our offspring, family, coworkers, community and even our environment.
As parts of a greater whole, we all inevitably affect the people and world around us, much like how our parents shaped ours and how their parents shaped theirs and so on and so forth. It's really a never ending thing (until of course we see the demise of life itself).
Same as that which happens when an orchestra (e.g. a brain) stops playing and its members (e.g. neurons) irreversibly-irreparably disband, namely, "what becomes of" the music (e.g. consciousness) is that it simply ceases.
I am not disagreeing with your points of viewing the end of individual consciousness at death, and I can take on board the idea that the person lives on to some extent in the effects their lives have upon other people. I am just interested to know why you think that consciousness ceases completely at death. Is this based on the premise that mind is totally dependent on the brain?
I think that many people do take this view and it may well be correct. However, this is not the only way of seeing consciousness, and I am thinking about the perspective of Henri Bergson and Aldous Huxley who believed that rather than the brain generating consciousness, it is a reducing valve. This is consistent with William Blake's view that if the 'doors of perception were cleansed', we would see 'all things as infinite.'
I do agree with your description of Huxley's understanding the brain as expressed in The Doors of Perception, but I think that his his understanding of the mescalin induced visions induced visions do allow for an understanding of altered states of consciousness. But perhaps I am twisting his argument.
I will say that my own bit of psychedelic experimentation, at a warehouse rave, certainly led me to question the mind and body question. I had the experience of sensing that I could walk through other people on the dancefloor. Also, I had the experience of looking at myself in a mirror and being able to see all my surroundings except myself, as if I had become invisible. I concluded that I could not see myself because I had left my body.
Of course, my experience might be regarded as a hallucinationary delusion. I had read Huxley's book and thought about it in relation to his views but perhaps I am twisting his argument to explain my own psychedelic experience.
You triggered my memory of reading about genetic memory. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/genetic-memory-how-we-know-things-we-never-learned/
I think I may have a memory of past incarnations? Not much and the one just before this one seems the most complete. I am not the only person who seems to live with a memory of a previous life. I have contemplated this for a while and decided in order to have new lives, we must forget the past one. I would not want to repeat my present life but would love it if somehow I were born again and retained the knowledge I gain from intentional studying. This totally brings into question who am I if I come to life as different people with different life experiences and possibly retain some memory of each lifetime without being the same personality as the one before? Sort of like we are sitting in a theater and watching one movie after another. We experience each movie but do not end with each movie. :brow:
My goodness, this thread is trigging so many memories that I have not thought about for a long time. I am having a delightful time. I am also thinking I should write this stuff down because I want to be aware of some memories and I can not trust my brain to be aware of fading memories.
I had a few spontaneous transcendental experiences many years ago that strongly impacted what I believe about life. One such experience was to have no identity of my own but to think I am one with the fence, one with the field, one with the convict in prison, etc.... one with the universe. As you said, that experience gives me reason to believe you are right to refer to those who said our brains function to filter out information.
I can relate to what you are saying because one of my earliest memories is of being in a cot and a sensation of 'coming around again,' and this felt more than just waking up from being asleep in the usual sense.
Also, my grandfather died 6 weeks before I was born and I was often compared to him. When I was about 12 years old I really began wondering if I had been him in a previous life because I was into a fairly obscure author of school boy stories, which was not of my own generation. When I was talking of one of these books I wanted to read, my mother said that the strange thing was she was sure that the title had been one of the books which she had thrown away in the bookcase of books belongings to my grandfather.
I never mentioned my contemplation of reincarnation to anyone at the time because I was in a Catholic family and school, with set views, mainly of resurrection at the end of the world. I would have been told off for thinking nonsense, and it is likely that readers of this site may accuse me of talking nonsense too.
That is very materialistic when reality is all about energy.
Doesn't light carry the memory of the stars as they were millions of years ago. Who's to say that memory dies when the body can no longer function.
Quoting Athena
Yes. Death and rebirth is a manner to start afresh, like a new game of chess. We do not forget what were have learned, but we can start again to see how well we learned and how much more we can learn. The Universe is constantly playing the game of creating and learning, just like a game of chess.
I have a very old book about logic and it clearly states we should never be too sure about what we think we know. A wise person maintains doubt. I have a big problem with religious people who think they can know God's truth and that anyone who does not agree with them is wrong. I once read, when we think we know God, we know God not. The Bible says God is beyond our comprehension and the religious folks keep making their notion of God comprehensible, rather than remain open-minded. From there, things can get really bad as some people are willing to kill for their notion of God to be the only one.
Some have argued Jesus spoke of reincarnation and I believe knowledge of Buddha improves our knowledge of Jesus because I believe Jesus's thinking was more oriental than western and culturally we are separated from oriental thinking.
Roman was very materialistic and the result is flipping the Egyptian trinity of being spiritual beings, into a trinity of God. The Egyptian trinity is more like we are spiritual beings having a human experience. One part dies with the body, one part goes on to be judged and may entire the good life or not, and always the third part returns to the source. The trinity of God denies our spirituality but has to impose a notion of souls? In Christianity, the trinity is God, Son, and Holy Ghost. I really do not comprehend Christian thinking, because to me the religion is dependent on believing in supernatural beings, but Christians see themselves as opposed to superstition. That is a little nuts to me. A new word had to be invented for the Romans to accept the trinity of God. Greeks had a word for the trinity but not Romans and for many years Christians warred against each other over the issue if Jesus was the son of God or God Himself.
Anyway back to reincarnation. Jesus made a statement about my father has many rooms and we enter and leave those rooms. That can be taken as a reference to reincarnation. There was a time when Buddhism and Catholicism came close to combining. The difference between eastern spiritism and western materialism with supernatural beings pasted on, holds the beliefs apart.
"The human body is the best picture of the human soul." ~Wittgenstein
Quoting Jack Cummins
"Consciousness" isn't a thing, it's a process like respiration or digestion; and the extant evidence to the contrary doesn't falsify the conjecture that mind is no more (or less) than what the human brain does - it's a CNS function, just as pumping blood is a heart function.
Quoting Athena
And "energy" - vibration, motion, transformation - is not "materialistic"?
I love the way you said that.
Has anyone here read Jose Arguelles's "The Mayan Factor"? Does anyone know of the Great Cycle as 13 Baktun Synchronation Beam and the Harmonic Convergence? The Mayans may have had a better understanding reality than we do?
Matter vibrates, moves, changes, but what is energy and where does it come from?
E=mc^2 ... Anyway, the question is incoherent, or is begged, since any "where" (or when) - spacetime - is inseparable from "matter ... energy". To be is to "vibrate, move, change" à la dao.
The ancients observed life more clearly.
1. If our brains shut down then our consciousness ceases to exist
2. If we die then our brains shut down
Ergo,
3. If we die then our consciousness ceases to exist (from 1, 2 Hypothetical syllogism)
4. We die
Ergo,
5. Our consciousness ceases to exist (3, 4 Modus ponens)
Sad!!!
I don't think I have answered my question. On one hand I have seen the logic of the physical equation of death with the physical body. But I don't know if you read my exchange about my own psychedelic experimentation and the issue of reincarnation with Athena this afternoon. I don't think that there is a clear, definite answer.
I don't think that the problem can be set out in a number 1-5 point strategy as you try to do. I think that our knowledge is limited.
I believe that the Buddha was uncertain about the whole issue of life after death. Of course the Buddha did not write books and his thoughts have been interpreted differently by the various traditions.
You are a lover of paradoxes and perhaps the mystery of life after death is one, because we are left with the whole conundrum of whether the body gives rise to the mind or the body to the mind ? Which is the more real? The one thing which you are right about me is that I am the seeker and explorer, and I haven't stopped searching yet...
And that's the way you should live your life. When you're dead, you're done. Why waste time thinking that it will be something else?
I don't see the matter as a difference between mind and body. The brain is a meat machine that is clearly involved with "generating" consciousness. That doesn't explain anything by itself. The conditions that make the experience possible must be connected to the unfolding of the world beyond the horizon of any particular organism but it is very difficult to explore how that works.
When we consider what might be universal in regards to our existence, we get further away from the problems given to it. I think that is why Spinoza said we can only experience events as determined.
I appreciate what you are saying and I you are trying to be helpful and stop me wasting my time overthinking But, of course this site is meant to be about debating the questions of philosophy and not just about coming up with definitive answers, as provided in the name of science.
Certainly Jack! I only added that at the end because it is a certainty of life that cannot be rationally concluded in any other way. I do believe questions like, "Why do humans believe they can live after they die?" are questions worth exploring. Same with, "If we know there is no afterlife, how should we live our life today?"
On the question of life after death however, I believe the answer is as solid as you can get from anything in life. We all die. And that is the end.
Death, at first, is the last time consciousness ends and cannot recur, then, as determined by doctors and such, when bodily functions cease.
Is there anything ... extra, unaccounted for ... found...? Anything missing...?
I suppose you might check @Sam26's Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body thread; bit long though.
I am not convinced with any certainty that there is life after death but I know many people who have firm conviction that it is as real as this one. But these firm believers in life beyond death would probably would not be discussing the issue on a philosophy site at all, because from their point of view the matter is fixed too.
Okay, I will look at an old thread to see if there are any gems of wisdom. I know that The Opposite speaks highly of 'Sam', if it is the same person. But people are joining the site daily so I like to interact with these people rather than just read dead threads, or reply to comments by people who have not logged in for ages. But, it is worth looking in the archives, but part of the reason I do not do that too often is that if I find something wonderful I would not wish to commit plagiarism.
They had less intellectual debris to face. So their minds made up the missing stuff in the cracks of knowledge, and since the majority of creation thus became the product of their imagination, they saw the world more clearly. Everyone is very clear about the product of their imagination.
What happens to the conscious after death? That I'd like to know too. Theories and fantasies may abound; evidence is non existent.
It is the great unknown.
As much as I'd like to think that consciousness is seperare and possibly eternal, it's still what we call somewhat supernatural. There's still no proof of it.
However, that also doesn't mean that there's no such thing either. It might be one of the major forces in nature and as a form of energy(?) it too cannot be destroyed.
In simplicity one gains clarity. Complexity clouds the obvious. A idea needs only one sentence. The Internet is a manifestation of junk debris. Better to look at a pond.
I am glad that while you do not actually believe in life after death you do not claim such a definitive certainty as many others do. Some of those who are so certain of their truth that death is an absolute end seem to verge onto being defensive.
When you say that identities change, but nothing happens to consciousness,' are you saying that it continues to exist?
That's interesting because most of the people in this debate are arguing against consciousness existing. Perhaps you could explain your view in a bit more detail as it may offer a new angle.
I used to be so sure before but then the truth is I'm not 100% certain and so I can't say that some unobserved phenomena don't exist for sure.
95% of the universe is basically unknown after all.
First I just want to question the assumption that consciousness ends at death. It's an understandable assumption, because we also assume that consciousness disappears when we, say, take a general anaesthetic or get knocked out with a punch. It seems to me possible that it is not consciousness that it affected, but identity. If we define ourselves a la Hume, as a bundle of memories, perceptions and thoughts etc, bundled together in an integrated functioning whole, it seems to me that that is exactly the kind of thing that is fairly fragile and easily disrupted, say, with a blow to the head. We stop functioning as one thing. Our singular identity is lost. And death is an even more emphatic loss of coherent function than being knocked out, so a fortiori, whatever we think happens when we get knocked out, also happens at death, just in a more permanent way. I'm a panspychist for separate reasons (which I won't rehearse now), so I think there is still consciousness there, as consciousness is a basic property of all matter/energy/substance/action/function or whatever concept you want to take as most fundamental.
So, how do we choose between these possibilities? What's lost? Identity or consciousness? We can use language as a guide: "I lost consciousness when I got hit on the head." That probably is the default position we are educated into by habit and language. We could rephrase this in terms of loss of the humean self: "I got hit on the head and could no longer think, forgot everything, had no perceptions. Then when I came around these things returned." It seems to me to describe a loss of identity. To pick up 180s metaphor, the tune the orchestra plays is identity, not consciousness.
I'll stop there as it's a bit late for me. I can go on some more another time if you want.
Whatever experience one might one want to have there is this other thing.It does not care about you as a project of nurture.
So, how does one frame that element? It is connected your choices. But you don't own them.
Getting small like Socrates.
Agreed that it's not separate from spacetime, we know energy isn't conserved in general relativity over very long distances.
I have read your comment and the aspect of your thinking which relates to my initial idea of my thread is whole the process of consciousness after death. I think that a lot of readers response to the post have missed this subtle point, or perhaps I did not emphasise it enough. I was not just asking about the issue of immortality alone but about the actual processes of consciousness which are likely to occur.
My original discussion of near death experiences fits into this area, as a possible state of deep dreaming. Of course, we have no reason to think that everyone will have near death experiences at death, because all we have to go upon is those who did not die ultimately. But as a hint, of the possibility of such dream states we can indeed wonder about the questions of identity at death.
Would it be loss of the individual identity, as conveyed in the Hindu notion of Brahman(the person) merging into Atman(God consciousness), or perhaps now I am expressing myself too much in the language of the mystics.
But I am interested in what the person will encounter at death, and will it be the dissolution of identity as we know it? Am I wondering about the remnants of consciousness while lying buried in a coffin? I probably am, and I would also ask whether the experience of being buried would be different from that of cremation in terms of dissolution of consciousness and identity. I once read an argument in theosophy that aspects of the desire aspects of subtle bodies can be broken down more easily in cremations.
I am not sure if both you and I are talking in the same frame of reference and, as far as I know,I am not a panpsychist. But I am interested in the process of death, and do also take an interest in the whole burial process which took place in Egyptian culture in which death was seen as a journey.
Of course, I realise that we are in a scientific age and the whole notion of afterlife speculation may be seen as part of our struggle to cope with the idea of death as our egoic wishes may be about wanting to live forever. But, even those who dismiss the idea of immortality totally, could consider the end processes of life, or perhaps they do not see it as worth thinking about at all.
Generally speaking, I would query your view as to whether we can determine getting what we want. I would be drawing upon the idea of the law of attraction as expressed by Esther and Jeremy Hicks.
However, I presume you are talking about life after death in the point you are making. In this sense, I would say in agreement that we cannot say that it will happen because we would like it. It either happens or not and I think that some people may believe in it because it appeals to them.
I am not even sure that I do want to live beyond death, because living this one life is hard enough. But, ultimately I see the question of life after death as being beyond the issue of personal preference and one about finding truth.
:rofl: excuse, please. Youtube has many more interesting explanations and I like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn4J8RcMGrM
Maybe. I was saying something completely different, though. You are saying something completely different from what I was saying. The exchange of ideas. This is what it's all about.
Very true. Sometimes the obvious is the truth, and it's not complex also sometimes. Some other times the truth is complex, and not obvious. In those times simplicity clouds the well-thought out.
I say potato, you say potato. We say what we say without any effect of disproving the other, just mentioning extreme cases that are fully compatible. With each other, if you seek truth and examine it case-by-case.
In one sense, finding out what is the truth is to pass and see what happens or not. However, if the truth is supposed to relate to our responses while we live, those expectations are not just preferences but frames for our decisions and experience. As a result, they lead to different experiences of what is needed or not. An operating manual for ethical decisions.
It is difficult to approach the question because any view that connects life and death is not replaceable by some principle that keeps them separate. If it was that easy, we would just do that.
Edit to add:
As an example, consider Nietzsche presenting the idea of Eternal Recurrence as the the antithesis to the Christian view that there are two worlds we inhabit at the same time. If there is only one world, then we should adjust our expectations. That Nietzsche still uses the eternal reference is odd.
What is he trying to say?
I just noticed that you made an addition to the post which you wrote, about Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence. You say that it is important to note that he formed his idea as an alternative perspective to the Christian perspective on life being in two worlds. I think that you probably mean heaven and hell.
This has just left me wondering what people think about the issue of life after death in the more expensive views opened up by physics. I am not saying it necessarily means that there is life after death but simply that we are no longer living in the Newtonian- Cartesian paradigm in which humanist and atheist views emerged. I am just wondering what the implications of quantum physics, possible worlds and other new ideas throws up for the question of consciousness at death.
I was thinking more along the lines of the separation of this world or ??? ?????? from the kingdom of heaven as depicted by St. Paul, or the difference between the City of God and the City of Men as described by St. Augustine. The Christian point of view tends toward seeing present choices in this life as directly involved in immortality as the desired outcome.
But, as a professor I had long ago pointed out, the text says "eternal life" not life after death. Not tasting death only makes sense as a way of life. Nobody can prove the future. Accepting that certain conditions apply is either a discovery or an assumption. Our results will vary. The anticipation is the central focus.
All of that is a different matter from trying to understand consciousness as a phenomenon or phenomena. But the problem does not come from being stuck in one worldview or another. We might need some more philosophy. Spinoza noted that we use frames of reference that a Creator would not.
As for the Nietzsche mention, I was interested in the idea of him being motivated to find the opposite pole of Christianity. He employed a certain version of Eternity to collapse the Two World idea.
Hamlet was barking up the wrong tree.
I agree that we need to wake up from the everyday unconsciousness of daily life, as Guirdjieff suggested, rather than even begin to worry about what happens when we die.
and many have had (hallucinations that include sensory experiences).
The reason there isn't more exposure of near death experiences is fear of suicide or giving up.
The actual experience is beautiful and motivating, however it can not be explained because we
are so dependent on our senses.
It has been said that our most enlightened state is the moment of birth,
before we become dependent on our senses.
The whole area of near death experiences is fascinating. It is unclear what they represent. I would say that I have some borderline sleep experiences, including a profound one at age 16. I was drifting into sleep and was aware of entering what appeared to be like a cathedral dome. There was a throne, and an orb, representing God. I could see angels on one side, and devils on the other. A voice spoke from the light(God), saying,
'You will decide in your own heart on which side of the altar you stand.'
I blinked my eyes open, but startled by it. I have puzzled over it, and did, wonder if it was a stark choice between heaven and hell. This worried me terribley because at that time I had not even begun to question the basics of my Catholic upbringing. Over time, I came to view the message as meaning that I had to determine my own choices regarding rather than have others tell me what to do to reach heaven and avoid hell.
But the reason I disclose it here, is that I was not dying at the time, but it was like a near-death experience and still makes me curious about the whole nature of near death experiences and what exactly they represent.
I think the ancient peoples had a better qualitative experience of death since they lived in closer-knit communities and there was just more death around them all the time. We modern people never even have to slaughter our own animals to get meat. If we live without being alienated form each other, we start to see the universality of being alive and of being human in relation to other forms of life much more clearly than a person can today in a big house surrounded by material objects that are nonliving.
The notion that "death is when the soul leaves the body never to return" is a phenomenological description (as much as anything else) since the ancients regarded the soul as the animating factor -- in other words the living creature has stopped moving, growing, etc. Treating the "soul" or "spirit" as having any actual existence requires an idealist or dualist worldview since such an object would have been observed by now if it had a material composition.
Even in an idealist framework, I think its safe to say that some aspects of consciousness end with life. Admitting something like eternal intellect or God, if this being has all knowledge, it cannot make a decision, and so would have no active or deliberative consciousness. Similarly, a spirit has no memory or senses, so cannot be aware of its own thoughts or sense anything in the world. Thus, a spirit has no passive or sensational consciousness. So whether or not we join with God when we die, we lose something precious.
Yes, that is the true extent of the question of the possibility of immortality. It depends on belief in a soul, or spirit. It is hard to define these terms exactly.
However, the biggest problem in trying to find evidence seems to come down to the way in which consciousness is dependent on the existence of a brain. Also, it is hard to imagine existence without a body.
Of course, traditional Christian views spoke of the idea of the resurrection of the body, although people the idea of the resurrection body of St Paul was a spiritual body.
In Eastern philosophy the idea of reincarnation is seen to follow, so it does not suggest the idea of existence without a body except in terms of a short period, such as that described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Also, some Eastern philosophy implies the idea of initiation, and this suggests an idea of a spiritual body.
So, we are left with the possibility of the existence of a spiritual body. However, it is hard to define the spiritual body. I am sure that many neuroscientists would say that there is no such thing as a spiritual body, and dismissed the notion of spirit altogether. However, perhaps they are mistaken because the animating force has to be present for life as opposed to death to exist. Of course, this ceases to exist, as far as we know, at death. But there is a possibility that on an invisible level some aspect of this spark continues to exist on an invisible level, beyond death.
It does involve one central mystery: what is spirit?
Quoting Jack Cummins
It is hard to imagine my computer, books, desk, chair, etc. as animated. Effectively we are living in a dead world when we are separate from nature. I have a very uneasy feeling about this and wonder about the psychological and social impact.
.
If you believe that the chair and objects around you are animated this might mean that you are a panpsychist. I do not believe that objects around me are animated as such but I do feel that there are energy connections, but they may proceed from us, as conscious beings. Here, I am talking about the meaningful connections, or synchronicities, which involve objects. I am talking about books or CDs which sometimes almost fall off the shelves meaningfully at critical times.
I believe I have entered spaces and felt an energy. This is most likely for me if the space was used for praying or seances or other spiritual things are done.
Looking for information I found this..
A few years ago when a friend died, a bird did not move when I walked past. That concerned me so I bent down to pick up the bird. I would have taken it to a vet if it had a problem. Finally, almost touched the bird before flew away. I thought that was odd and went on my way. I went into my apartment building and got on the elevator. The door closed and the lights flashed and the elevator would not move. I was afraid of being trapped in the elevator and just before I tried to get out, everything returned to normal. In many years of using that elevator that never happened before or since.
Another time that stands out for me is a friend lost a husband, and the words red and bucket came to my mind. At the same time, I thought I had received a message for her but I couldn't believe that until she confirmed the words red and bucket have meaning. I was compelled to message her those words and she asked me why I did that. I told her I didn't know why I was compelled to write those words and was hoping she would tell the meaning. As it turned out there was a red bucket used as a wastebasket in her husband's bedroom.
Another time when a woman who had just lost her children in a house fire got in my car, and I was compelled to say something that came from a Ninja Turtle show, and she told me her son said that often.
I could go on. It seems like I have gotten messages from the other side but I could be wrong? However, a message from my dead mother warning me of a difficult time that would come out okay, proved extremely helpful to me.
And on this subject, there are people who can hold something that belongs to another person and come to know things about this person. I have to add that, because you mentioned objects can hold energy that is a form of information.
Sure ... :point:
Quoting 180 Proof
:roll:
There were two TV shows done by two different men who claim they communicate with the dead. I think they are very convincing that do in fact communicate with the dead, and that death is not the end. Here is a Youtube of John Edwards who communicates with the dead, and in this video about 1/3 through he speaks of the pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e45ZGABCa0k
While this 'prospect' appeals to me (à la What Dreams May Come – 1998 film, not the book), "experience after death" and "stuck in time" make no sense, which leaves me convinced that life — a complex, ecology-situated, informational process aka "living" — simply ceases when we die, no matter how we die or have lived, and, thereby, is even more reason for each of us to live as good a life we as can, every day, every hour ... for as long as we're able to, for living's own sake. :fire:
I think that you make a good point. What happens after death is a mystery, even though some people think that they have definite answers. Whatever, this life is important and living it well, and perhaps this must be upheld, and I say this from the perspective of having agonised over the question of life after death endlessly. I wish that I knew the answer to the question of life after death but I am afraid that I do not know, and, for the present time, just try to accept this lack of knowledge.
It seems to me that the question of an afterlife is a curious one because, on the one hand, if I do continue to live after I die, then by definition I will know it, whereas, on the other hand, if I do not continue to live after I die, then by definition I will not know it. So, essentially, I can only know the former, but not the latter, state-of-affairs, after I die. All the rest, to me, is pure speculation.
Yes, if we do not exist beyond death we will not know it, but if we do exist we will know. This spells out the extent of possibilities, except borderline states of consciousness, and future rebirth.
Perhaps the people who do not think about this matter at all are better off, and perhaps it would have been better if this thread had not been created.However, I am sure that some may worry about this alone, so, if nothing else, the thread may be an outlet for anxiety over this problem, which I see as possibly the hardest philosophy questions of all.
Someone who communicates with those who have crossed over said they do not know they are dead. When we are dreaming we do not know we are asleep. It is really great when we have a bad dream and wake up realizing it was only a dream.
The question is what is the truest state of being 'awake'?
I don't think there is such a thing but I am not sure of anything. I think we have different awarenesses but one would not be truer than another? And the experience we think we are having may not be true at all. Oh dear, how do we know the experience we are having is true? We may think we are loved and discover we are not loved, or think we are hated and we are not hated. The whole racist thing is people thinking something is true and there may be little truth to what one thinks. A con person is good at making us believe something that is not true or our inability to trust others could be internal. How do we know? When we are asleep we think the dream is true and when cross over who knows what that is like?
I have read what makes life on earth different is we can process the things we think about faster in 3-dimensional reality.
Perhaps, in this world or in the next, I am existing in, or as, someone else's dream; and when that someone else awakens, I cease to be. To put a different spin on Descartes' famous saying: When and while It is dreaming, I exist.
For me, the finality of death adds to the goodness of life. Time goes by so fast when you are alive.
Remember: It's is a once-around world, a once around life. And when you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer. In Heaven there is no beer, which is why we drink it here.
The following are the philosophical views of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
:death: :flower:
On a philosophy forum you are not entitled to your opinion, even if it happens to be true.
You said in response to Bitter Crank that people are not entitled to opinion on a philosophy forum. On the particular question of life after death I am not sure that people can give more than opinion.Of course, the introduction of reason can be important but in thinking about life after death has its limitations because we are talking about the unknown.
I am also aware that Sam26 has restarted his thread from a year ago on the subject of evidence of consciousness after death if anyone is interested. It is 21 pages long, although I have to admit that I have not read it all, but others might wish to.
Please don't think that I was actually criticising you. I have been reflecting how the whole question of what is an opinion in philosophy. Perhaps arguments are only opinions constructed on the basis of reason, especially on topics such as this one, and the whole existence of God.
The whole issue of magical thinking is an interesting one. I came across it on a short cognitive behavioral therapy course. Most people use magical thinking a lot and it requires work to overcome. In the first place, I even used magical thinking, wishing against the belief in life after death because my Catholic belief system left me worried about hell. So, I would say that the idea of life after death is not always too good to be true.
In your post you speak of life being fast because it is in 3D. I would just suggest that life has 4, 5 and perhaps many more. I am inclined to think that if consciousness exists beyond death, may be in a different dimension to the one we are accustomed to in daily life.
Jack, I really do not know what I am talking about. We need someone who understands math theories.
but I think.....Three dimensions are required for the manifestation of matter. We process our concerns faster in a three-dimensional reality because there are boundaries. Without boundaries there is timelessness. That is there is no space-time. You can not run without the resistance of the ground. You can not go forward or backward, you just are.
I like the Hindu notion of reincarnation better and most of my life has been preparing for the next one. Now maybe my spirit ends here, but it was been fun preparing for the next life.
I am really not trying to be confusing talking about more than three dimensions. I have actually been engaging with a member of the forum, Possibility, about dimensions in relation to art. The fourth dimension probably includes aspects of time, such as memories.
However, while some people are starting to think in more than three dimensions, I don't think that it is essential to do so as it is probably not a mainstream view. I remember talking about the 5D reality to one of my managers at work and I think that she thought that I was crazy.
Language has so much to do with our understanding. Rome could not accept the trinity of God because it did not have a word for that concept and as a result Christians who thought God was a trinity father/son/holy ghost, and those who thought Jesus is the son of God, were killing each other! The Greeks had no problem with a god being a trinity and appearing in human form. Eventual Rome adopted the new terminology and they were able to get past the fighting.
This directly relates to this discussion. How do we understand the life force? Do we see what numbers have to do with knowledge of life forces? What do we know of energy and quantum physics?
I :heart: Bitter Crank's post but maybe he would not be so sure there is no life after death if he thought all living matter has a spirit or if he saw reality as quantum physics explains it. Our language limits our notion of what we can believe is possible and if we do not have knowledge of math as more than numbers, we are blind to so much.
No, Descartes was not aware of Hinduism. European thinkers only began to translate Sanskrit works during the late 18th and early19th century. As far as I can tell, Goethe and Schopenhauer were the first notable European intellectuals to praise works in Sanskrit. Schopenhauer highly praised Hindu and Buddhist thinking and even incorporated several of their philosophical insights into his own philosophy.
What disturbs me most about the "When and while It is dreaming, I exist" pun on Descartes' "When and while I am thinking, I exist" is how dependent, fragile, ephemeral, and insignificant it portrays human existence to be. Given the dream scenario, human existence lacks the dignity even of being a clear-sighted, conscious, deliberate and desirable creation of the divinity. Instead, human existence appears to be nothing more than a divine slumberer's groggy after-thought.
Given this scenario, should the sage seek to keep the divinity asleep or awake?
At face value, what you say appears true and you may be right. On the other hand, perhaps the matter is not as straightforward as we often think. We could ask what is consciousness, exactly?
I agree. Matter may not be as straightforward as we think. With that said, there is no evidence of any kind that consciousness (specifically the consciousness of the person deceased) continues in any form.
I'd like to add that I've noticed a trend in various discussions regarding consciousness to conflate the consciousness of the individual with consciousness as a concept or even "force" of nature. When I say that consciousness ceases to exist, I am referring to the consciousness an individual possesses. It matters not for the individual if the "force" of consciousness continues to exist in some abstract way. The person will cease to experience life.
Yes, the more abstract it becomes the more the arguments begin to get meaningless, although the idea of some processes after death, prior to a rebirth in another bodily form is another possibility. If this was the case I would think that it is likely that humans are reborn as human beings. The theosophical writers argued in this direction.
The value of humans is something I think most of us wonder about and I like the way you handle the subject. I think a favor being pragmatic and Greek philosophy. And the way you worded your concern I am stuck with thinking we are less valuable because of imagining a different reality that is superior to this one. I know Plato did that and that has also bothered me. Just for the fun of it, let us accept our human reality is the best it is going to get. There may be more. There could live after death or we could have more than one life. but for now, on mother earth, it works for me to appreciate what we have and to strive to be the best human I can be.
But boy, yesterday I sure did blow it! I lost all my composure in a Walmart and I hope I can avoid that store in the future because the customer service is so bad! It was easier to be a pleasant human being in the past when there was an effort to please the customer. Wasn't it Aristotle who talked about the art of being angry with the right person, in the right way, at the right time? Yeah, I like being practical. It is better than trying to be a saint. And there should be a philosophical explanation for avoiding unpleasant experiences that bring out the worst in us. :lol:
Addendum:
Quoting Jack Cummins
Furthermore (speculatively): 'consciousness' [seems] self-modeling brain-activity's phenomenal aspect/s (i.e. how minding feels). More ...
Education for technology has brought the worst in us. It is as Zeus feared. With the technology of fire, we have gained all other technologies and turned our backs on the gods. We are now technologically smart but unwise. Our intelligence is not of value without wisdom.
Except for beavers eh. They see a creek, they imagine a home, they build a dam, then a home...
Come to think of it, lots of things change their surroundings to suit their needs, so...
...I guess the prevalent theory is that if we can't communicate with them (let's ignore that maybe they don't want to talk to us) then they can't communicate, and so also cannot have an imagination, or anything else that we don't assign them. (sigh) I find people's inherent arrogance a constant annoyance, continually operating on a jumped up assumption of superiority.
With respect to what happens to our consciousness after death; I adhere to the "energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed" theory. My consciousness will transform, or transmigrate, to an alternate location or energy level. Perhaps some fundamental memories, or memories of memories, will remain for me to build upon in the next go round.
What you are saying is interesting because there is definitely meant to be life before birth, in the period while the baby is in the womb.
The idea of life uniting with the universe sounds rather nice.
Sure. But I meant the moment before conception, when there wasn't anything that could be thought of, not even potentially, as a person. I don't see why after death, it would be any different, they look to me about the same. But who knows?
The whole question is at what point does consciousness first emerge. Is it a spark which arises at conception and flickers out eventually at death. A few posts back I asked 'what is consciousness?' and someone gave me a link to a lengthy thread on consciousness and I found that the arguments were going around in circles. I think that this is because, ultimately, consciousness is a mystery. This was expressed so well by Erwin Schodringer:
'Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms, for consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. Quantum physics reveals a basic oneness of the universe. Multiplicticity is only apparent in truth, there is only one mind.'
Now, there is many people who are inclined to assert "hey, no-thing is some-thing too" - "the proof is that you are even talking ABOUT it: You are on this occasion basically using some-thing in order to deny some-thing."
This assertion is at the core of Presuppositional Apologetics and of the Transcendental argument (behold, you are USING some-thing called truth, consciousness, thought, logic... in order to comment ABOUT truth, consciousness, thought, logic... regardless whether you mean to prove or to dismiss them, behold! You are using them in the veeeerry first place".
Sure is, i assert a categorical error here: All that I DO use, it is a big elefant in the room: It is the individual evolved-primate brain, and everyone is factually using this brain. The consciousness is but a momentary, temporary symptom of the activity in the brain. the consciousness is {imaginary-non-causal} = epiphenomenal. IF we go quarrel whether the consciousness does exist or not - it is asserting a moot point:
The consciousness is BUT being fabricated in a brain, while it is working. ONLY if you are capable of intellectually penetrating the very simple assertions of mine - if you accept that every dormancy period is providing an information that the consciousness is but temporarily fabricated - you can successfully refute the above-mentioned Apologetics. Kind regards from GERMANY!
The beavers' behavior comes in the genes, not the development of the brain. We can inherit skills like beavers, birds, and other animals and insects. This is called "Genetic memory" and it is not equal to human imagination. Maybe someday high schools will include knowledge of our brains and modes of thinking. I think that would be a huge benefit to individuals and society. It might improve our communication etiquette.
That depends on if you think consciousness emerges, or if it's there at the beginning, which would be panpsychism. I don't find panpsychism convincing, although it of course is interesting.
I think it makes more sense to consider it as a part of a system of organized matter, when this organized matter perishes, so too does consciousness. This of course makes use of the idea of emergence, which I think applies to many phenomena in nature.
Even if there are elements of consciousness in the basic stuff of the universe, this doesn't apply to states such as dreamless sleep, or whatever "state" we were in prior to birth. So even if consciousness is fundamental, it doesn't explain absence of consciousness in many circumstances.
Arthur Janov claims that the experience prior to birth is anything but basic in his book, 'The Primal Scream'. I think that in early childhood I was aware of having experienced a definite something beyond birth( or even after a previous life before this one).
I have said a bit about my experiences earlier in the thread and don't want to say more here to bore other readers who have read my previous posts. But what I will add here is that I did think about death at an early age because my grandmother died when I was 2 and a half and this was explained to me.
But the one point I would criticise about your post is that you say that there is no consciousness in dreamless sleep. This is disputable and here, I am thinking of the near death experiences. This has only been touched on briefly but has been looked at more fully on another thread on evidence of consciousness after death by @"Sam26, if you are interested.
I agree completely. I find this is increasingly lacking, which is unfortunate.
Sure, many of us have felt the terror of being aware of our own mortality at a young age, maybe 2 is very young compared to most, but I think that overlooks the main point. Prior to be born, when you try to think about what it was like, what do you say? I've seriously attempted to do a kind of phenomenological exercise here, and I find that, no term I can come up with fits the "state I was in" before being born. I can't speak of fear, boredom, joy, worry, pain, pleasure or anything else. The best idea I can come up to describe how it was like before I came to life, would be "none of the experiences I've had in life comes close to saying anything about such a state", which can be translated simply into "I felt nothing."
You can speak about near death experiences and the like, but virtually all cases on this topic turn out to be highly suspect, similar to when people claim they see a flying saucer in some field. If there is some uniformity of experience in people who have gone through near death experiences, that can only suggest to me that they were in a similar state. If testimonies vary in terms of NDE, then all the more reason to be suspect about what a handful of people claim happens when you are dying and not yet dead. It's true that there is brain activity when we are in states of dreamless sleep, perhaps we may have even had a brief dream which we completely forget when we wake up. But if experientially it amounts to no experience at all, what would brain processes go on to add to my experience of dreamless sleep? The experience stays the same.
I agree with you about testimonies, including near death experiences. The people who had them did not die finally. I think that the real problem with the question of life after death is that we don't know the answer ultimately. I was brought up to believe that it existed, but questioned it and I go through phases when I do or do not believe in it. I think that because it is speculation it is easy to build up belief for or against it. Really, I hover between wanting and not wanting it to be true.
To be clear, it's possible for there to be something after death. It's also possible that before birth, our souls lived in some other realm or different universe or something. I think that it is very unlikely. But as you said, in the end, we don't know. It boils down to what you think makes more sense to each person.
can you clarify what you mean by this?
the hippie says since everything is nothing but frequencies and vibrations or energy slowed down, everything is alive in its own way even if it can’t be expressed in what we consider or acknowledge as “alive”
may be bullshit, but it’s pretty!
So what happens when you die is you have an experience. When you stop having an experience, then things stop happening. But there cannot be any transition between the two, otherwise, that would be an experience and so, still happening....
aren’t experiences filtered through our senses though? if death shuts down the brain (which is the analytical centerpiece of all sensory input) how is it still an experience? you don’t keep dying?
I hardly think it is bull shit because it is true, however, our understanding of it is inadequate.
That is called dementia of Alzheimer's disease.
What happens a person's consciousness when they leave university? Not much. University is a concept or a context designed to bring about certain ends; educate the student for further things. Likewise with human life. As matter is a concept, rather than a substance, so is human life a concept - a physical, biological, social context and concept. (Matter is an idea, not a substance)
I believe that when the spirit leaves this university/concept/physical domain, it continues on.
Yes, what happens to consciousness when you leave university? Perhaps you can end up behaving forever more in an afterlife of acting like a student. That is what I have probably ended up doing so far: living in student-like accommodation, reading books and writing etc. You can even be reincarnated onto another course. Perhaps, eventually you will reach Nirvana, which I have not managed so far, even when I was working. I don't know what Nirvana would entail here: having a family, becoming a professor?
You have dug up a thread which hasn't appeared in ages. I think that people on the site, and human beings are often likely to wonder about whether there is possible life, or consciousness after death. In the last couple of weeks, a thread has been created, and going strongly, on what proof would be convinced people that there was life after death. It is one of the questions which human beings are likely to wonder about frequently, but final answers will not be known until we die, and if there is nothing, we won't have the consciousness to even know this at all.
What thread is that? I haven't been around much recently..
Quoting Jack Cummins
I think that unconsciousness is part of life - sleep. Death doesn't deal in consciousness or unconsciousness
Try Nagarjuna's tetralemma "technique" (some find this description fails to do justice to the idea). Take a proposition or sentence, say this one, "I'm conscious" and tell yourself this: I don't affirm it, I don't deny it, I don't affirm and deny it, and last but not the least, neither do I affirm it nor do I deny it. What should happen, by my "calculations", is the sentence "I'm conscious" should become unthinkable i.e. you banish the thought I'm conscious" from the mind world. Every other sentence should be similarly dealt with until your mind becomes empty (of all thoughts) - the mind should, if all goes as planned, stop thinking. That's what happens to consciousness at death!
What's the point? you might ask. A simple one in my humble opinion: you can be alive but have no thoughts. If so, what is death in re mind?
It is just so strange that this thread popped up out of the blue again, when I was in the middle of reading and writing on current threads. The threads themselves seem to have life after death.
I propose a set of equations:
1. Physicalism: Brain + Thoughts = Consciousness
2. Nonphysicalism: Brain + Immaterial Mind + Thoughts = Xonsciousness
When we sleep, thinking ceases but the brain/immaterial mind continues on.
When we die, as per physicalism, consciousness ceases, the thing capapble of consciousness (brain) is destroyed, end of story.
However, according to nonphysicalism, the immaterial mind (the thing capable of consciousness) survives death and, in some religions, is transferred to another body (reincarnation).
From equations 1 and 2 above, we get,
3. [Physicalism] Brain + Thoughts = [Nonphysicalism] Brain + Immaterial Mind + Thoughts
Subtracting Thoughts from both sides, we get,
4. [Physicalism] Brain = [Nonphysicalism] Brain + Immaterial Mind
At this point we can conclude that the physicalist brain is identical to the nonphysicalist brain with an immaterial mind. Ockham's razor, duely applied, should shave off the immaterial mind and we're left with only the brain.
I am aware of one problem with what you are saying, 'When we are asleep, thinking ceases', because it clearly doesn't. When we are asleep, dreaming, thinking is present. The narrator consciousness and ego remain. In most instances, we remain aware of identity. In dreams we remain in the 'I' consciousness, rather than just immersed in a sea of images.
Agreed, we dream but that's only during REM sleep. There's the NREM sleep we can't ignore.
I think that it is so hard to know because there are various forms of sleep consciousness, and we cannot be sure that the near death experiences don't point to something significant which may come after death. The NDEs aren't proof of life after death as such, because the person didn't really die. In the same way, this applies to the dreamless states within sleep, because the person is not dead, but simply paused from thought.
No comment!
If there is life after death, then presumably, there will be some form of consciousness in which case our mind may be pre-programmed for it and some sleep experiences and, indeed, NDEs may be a preparation for after-death states.
So, I tend to agree that research into sleep consciousness may lead to insights into after-death states.
Not necessarily. Maybe some of them try but fail to establish contact except through dreams and visions, etc. that, unfortunately, can be explained away as imagination.
Also, they may go into a state of sleep, be reborn or otherwise be engaged in activities or experiences that impede contact with the living.
However, the issue is not "consciousness after the death of consciousness" but consciousness after the death of the physical body or separation of the former from the latter.
But the concept of "consciousness" seems imply inherently, if it exists, then it would make contact, communicate and interact.
When consciousness is asleep or in dreams without its presiding bodies, would it be meaningful to even call it consciousness?
It's only a "chimera" to those who are afraid of the unknown. That's where anti-materialism diverges from materialism. Human knowledge constantly progresses and expands. What may seem a "chimera" today could become established fact tomorrow. We can't stay stuck in the materialist past for ever. Science may even find ways of extending consciousness beyond death. IMO philosophy is about expanding consciousness and knowledge, not restricting it.
You don't know that it doesn't make contact, communicate and interact. For example, inspiration, artistic, scientific, or religious, may partly come from disembodied souls.
Quoting Corvus
That question is based on the unproven assumption that consciousness can't exist independently of a physical body. Does a body at rest cease to be a body? Disembodied consciousness may perfectly well experience states of rest or sleep, after which it is reborn into a new body and forgets its previous existence.
Besides, consciousness after death is said to inhabit a body (called ochema in Platonism) that is similar to the physical one but made of a more subtle form of substance.
According to Ian Stevenson children sometimes seem to remember aspects of former lives for a few years until memories fade away and the child's consciousness becomes fully integrated with its new existence.
Descartes solved this one for me. Drugs can alter how the conscious mind behaves, therefore, there is no separation between the physical and the mental. When we die - we die. An eternal nothingness. The "eternal anaesthetic" in Larkin's words.
Or, as I prefer to call it, THE FINAL ADVENTURE. Heck, there's always a 0.000000 [...] 000 chance that we are in an alternative universe wherein the conscious mind continues to exist for an eternity ...
What happens to consciousness when we sleep?
Quoting 180 Proof
:smirk:
Quoting BigThoughtDropper
:up:
What consciousness is beyond our universe?
What consciousness is beyond death?
There's no reason to think there is any, for either.
Ah. Another one?
There's no reason to think anything you or @180 Proof say is true
But hey, suit yourself. Whatever gets you through the night. Just don't expect agreement.
I want to run something by you. Consciousness can't be a physical pattern like ocean waves are of water - the brain would have to literally jiggle as it were with every thought, the frequency and amplitude of the jiggle being correlates of thoughts.
Ergo, consciousness is, my best guess, an electrical energy pattern that's generated in the gigantic neuronal network the brain is. If so, is it possible, do you think?, we can extract such neuronal patterns and adapt them to artificial brains, in a sense making consciousness immortal? Second question, if consciousness can be transferred, an idea you seem to take seriously enough, what's the status of physicalism?
:up: :rofl: Your honor, the defendant is unfit to stand trial.
In Greek mythology, Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) were twin brothers. The Greeks were onto something.
Unless I'm missing something else, this is confused, Fool. "An electrical energy pattern" IS "a physical pattern".
Yes. The 'connectome' is the target. I speculate on such a scenario here. (Scroll down this barely one page thread for a couple of brief, clarifying, replies).
This would show nonreductive physicalism (to which I subscribe, hence my scenario linked above) to be more useful methodologically than the alternatives as a functionalist description of 'mind is what CNS-brains do'.
Spot on. And the Greeks proved right on many things.
That sounds like they were having some sort of hallucinations.
Quoting Apollodorus
This sounds like some sort of mysticism rather than Philosophical topics?
Indeed! You're right. I've always had trouble thinking of energy (electricity being one of them) as physical. I'm told this was a recent development in physicalism. My bad and thanks for correcting me. I hope I don't repeat this mistake again.
However, in my defense, the pattern that consciousness may be needn't be physical per se, right? It could be, for instance, a mathematical one i.e. abstract enough to, well, escape the clutches of physicalist fanatics of which there seem to be a few im this forum. Not referring to you of course.
If consciousness is a mathematical formula (patterns in maths are formulas last I checked) then, the medium in which it's instantiated is...er...immaterial (pun unintended).
Quoting 180 Proof
Poor connectome! Quoting 180 Proof
What's that?
It's all Greek to me! :rofl:
It may sound like that to you. Stevenson and others like him regard themselves as scientists.
But scientific knowledge needs concrete evidence and proof on their theories.
If Stevenson and others apply scientific methods in their research then it can't be dismissed as "mysticism". In any case, their findings can't be rejected before even looking at them. To do so would be unscientific.
I'm not a mathematician, I'd love to be one but my love of math is an unrequited one, just like my other loves. Anyway, from what I know, if consciousness is a mathematical formula, I was wondering if we, our consciousness, exists in some kind of Platonic world of forms? Crazy or not, you be the judge.
Quoting 180 Proof
Exactly!
My view is that nothing happens to consciousness at death. What is lost is identity - temporary functional wholes (e.g. a human body and brain) disintegrate, cease to function in a co-operative organised way as they do in life. Also what is lost are particular complex ideas, feelings, desires, memories, all the make-up of a person's psychological identity, all of which are dependent on that functioning whole. There are still feelings, sensations in the leftovers, but these will be of a complexity and interest level corresponding to the structure and function of the remains. Identities are broken up, shifted and changed.
I do see a big problem with the idea of the existence of any disembodied form of existence and I do see this as a big argument against life after death. I believe that this is why a lot of ideas about life after death have been about ways to enable physical bodies to survive, in the prospect of reincarnation or resurrection of the dead. Of course, I realise that some of these ideas may be based on wishful thinking. I thought that @TheMadFools question about whether consciousness could be transferred to artificial brains is interesting. This is because the idea of brain replacement is one idea within the transhumanist picture, but there is the underlying question about identity, and to what extent this would survive.
I was extremely interesting in the thread on the theory of blind brains and consciousness started yesterday, because it is one which is trying to understand the nature of consciousness in relation to the working of the brain. I think that the whole idea of consciousness and subliminal levels of perception is extremely relevant to the idea of thinking where consciousness ends. I believe that even ideas of panpsychism come into play.
I think that many people, from all angles, try to come up with clear answers. In some ways, this may involve a wish for an afterlife, and I am not sure if I even want one, and it would depend on what this form of existence may constitute. From reading on this thread, and other reading, I can see the logistics of the arguments of physical materialism, but do not see them as absolutes because in so many areas of thinking about consciousness, including physics, as well as philosophy, there still remains a certain amount of uncertainty, particularly in the understanding of the nature of consciousness.
Trying to look at this question from a philosophy perspective, I am aware of the idea of souls arising within the tradition going back to Plato and Plotinus. I am certainly not dismissing it. But, trying to see it as from the standpoint of the philosophies of our time, it is complex. We can ask what are souls, and, even, what are bodies? Where does one end and, where does the sense of personal identity lie within this spectrum?
Right up my alley my dear Jack Cummins. I've been doing that my entire life and the results have been "amazing", if you know what I mean. :wink: :wink:
[quote=J P Morgan]A man always has two reasons for what he does—a good one, and the real one[/quote]
It appears all is not lost!
Quoting Jack Cummins
Odd spot for a sub to "resurface." :rofl:
Frankly speaking, your question, "what happens to consciousness when we die?" is particularly misleading from the standpoint of mysticism because of the mistaken emphasis on consciousness. It's like trying to understand the intrinsic nature of a, say, a gift box by studying its contents. Something not possible to my reckoning. It looks like I've been associating with the wrong crowd but if it's all the same to you, does being "conscious without being conscious of something" ring any bells?
It would depend on what you mean by "something". According to Plotinus, the reasoning part of us (to dianoetikon) is conscious of objects perceived by means of the sense faculties. In contrast, the Intellect or spirit proper (Nous) is conscious of itself. In other words, the highest form of consciousness is self-reflective intelligence whose essential activity is reflexive. Therefore, self-consciousness or consciousness of oneself as consciousness, is the knowledge that philosophy ultimately aims to attain.
Well, to be frank, it appears that Russell's paradox pops up in the weirdest of places. First thing that must happen is the mind "set" must contain something, anything except itself of course. So, suppose M is the mind "set". You think of something, say, the number 1. Now the mind "set" looks like this: M = {1}. Only after such a step is completed can the mind contain itself like so M = {{1}} i.e. for the duration that you're thinking about 1, M = {M}. However, M = {M}, a set that contains itself is, last I gave it some serious consideration, is impossible. I'm out of my depths here. Help me out!
I think that you raise such interesting questions, but I need time to think, but in the meantime, it is possible that others will come up with many ideas. I am fascinated by various responses and ideas, but just trying to hold out without my mind exploding completely. No one in philosophy has yet explored the idea of the exploding mind, but I do struggle with it at times.
:blush: You're too kind.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Logic bomb?
Well, you can think of the sea as a vast expanse or body of water that (1) contains and is itself as water and (2) contains things other than water itself such as fish.
Now compare consciousness with the sea. It is a vast expanse or body of self-aware intelligent energy that is (1) aware of itself as itself and (2) aware of objects such as thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, etc.
It probably goes beyond philosophy, but one of my favourite albums of all times is, 'Mind Bomb' by The The. Music tastes aside,we could ask to what extent do we turn ourselves into 'mind bombs' when we ask such complex questions? I am sure that I turn myself into a bit of a mind bomb, but in many ways see that as my role and purpose in my grand scheme of purpose in the consciousness of my own philosophy, and of those which exist in a far more universal way.
I definitely believe in the importance of slowing down. Sometimes, I rush answers through on this site, but, I am aware of their temporarily, with limitations. The wider questions are ongoing and cannot be reduced to the temperature or individual answers. Each of us may grapple for answers, and write down our ideas, but these are probably only fragments of knowing, and the deep questions of philosophy will endure for us and many others.
We are all All, but while we are alive we are All separately perceiving itself. When we die, we are All, as All, perceiving All as such, and blown away by it. Sometimes it becomes too much beauty, too much joy, so we parse ourselves out again for more individualized perceptions our self. It's like an orgasm followed by a refractory period, a cigarettes' in contemplation, a deep breath, before we die again. Life is down time.
The consciousness is us, then All, then us, then All, etc. But when it is us, it is like the rain drop and when it is All, it is the rain drop in the ocean. While we are alive it may seem humbling, even demeaning to seem to have lost our selves in death, into an ocean of All, but it's not like that at all. It may seem we lose our individuality, our separateness, and maybe we have, but we will love being the machine instead of being a mere cog in it. Besides, we can go back to being a cog. Who decides how, why and when? I don't know.
I'm not sure there is any such thing as a "mind bomb", otherwise you would see exploding heads everywhere.
The mind may feel like a bomb waiting to explode when you try to force-feed it too much info at the same time.
However, even then you can try looking at the mind and its contents from above as it were, as in a bird's-eye view sort of detached perspective. Once you get used to it, it's very easy and it gets rid of the pressure, too.
I am sure that I do speak of the idea of a 'mind bomb' as a symbolic rather than literal reality. But, I do think that this also raises the larger question of whether life after death is literal or symbolic? I remember the first query I ever had about the idea of life after death was by a Christian writer, CS Lewis, who suggested that life after death would be about existing in the mind of God. I was about 14 at the time of reading of this idea, and I have never mentioned this particular idea to anyone until this moment, but as it comes from within Christianity, I raise it now, for you to consider, and in the context of wider debate about consciousness and the idea of life after death.
A technique that I taught myself during preparation for exams was to imagine myself as a small point of light far above my head and looking down on my thoughts, body and other objects around me. I don't know whether this was under the influence of Platonism but it helped me to achieve a remarkable degree of detachment, focus and clarity of mind and I later read similar statements by Augustine and other writers directly or indirectly influenced by Platonism.
As for life after death being an existence in the mind of God this, again, would be consistent with Platonism. The only question is what would be the exact nature and form of that existence. This is where different traditions tend to diverge which is not surprising considering that there would be a virtually infinite range of intellectual and spiritual development and of conditions and situations different souls may find themselves in at any given moment in time and space.
The biggest question which I would have about the idea of CS Lewis, is what would it mean to exist in the mind of God, especially as many challenge the idea of God, or have different ideas of God. I believe that so many ideas about God, life, death and all these ideas have broken down so much. On this site, such ideas and their complications, or contradictory aspects are explored in some way, but I do believe that for those who make no connection with philosophy at all, there may be a complete vacuum of meaningless, in which contradictions and gaps in thinking cannot be reconciled at all.
I agree that there is so much which we cannot know for sure. Some go back to the real basics, while others go into so much speculation. Personally, I am not sure where we should go because both approaches have limitations and I believe that the juxtapositions are important, but they don't seem definitiv. Explorations of ideas about consciousness and personal identity, beyond the material, often seem to be so vague, or elastic, and this may be an intrinsic aspect of consciousness and thinking which makes it hard to equate, or differentiate it from the physical basis of reality, as we know it.
It is not a matter of what cannot be known for sure, it is a matter of what we can know nothing about at all.
Speculation is fine as long as one does not mistake it for some kind of higher truth. It is all too evident that just this kind of mistake occurs around here all too often.
But I do believe that we have to be careful of slipping into mystical muugidwash. I think that this applies to the many philosophies, ranging from the religious to scientific materialism. I believe that it is best not to start from knowing nothing, but seeing the basics of knowledge, as a starting point, but we probably are best not to try to find the complete answers because that would almost be about inflate us into an omniscient position. I am not really arguing with you, but just trying to frame our lack of knowledge. I am not sure whether we have too little or too much knowledge, and how this possible conundrum bears on our understanding of reality, especially in relation to the idea of life after death.
I agree. It would seem pointless to discuss the subject with people who dismiss the idea of God or, for that matter, of afterlife and metaphysical realities in general, when their only "contribution" is to assert that you don't know what you are talking about whilst reserving their own right to make long speeches about a subject that according to them doesn't exist. Immortality in Ancient Philosophy by A. Long makes interesting reading but I think, more generally, once you understand more or less how Platonism and related systems view the human soul and its relation to higher forms of intelligence, things tend to become a bit more clear.
Regarding figuring out the nature of the world I do think philosophy is all we have to tackle consciousness in a theoretical way.
I think it does, but there is a lot of stuff called philosophy. You can even find it at the cosmetic counter. And to think I went to school all these years ...
Quoting bert1
I think neuroscience is a more promising approach, but I don't think this excludes philosophy. The question of what happens to consciousness when we die, however, is not, in my opinion, a theoretical pursuit in either the ancient or modern sense of the term. It has no basis on which to stand. It is nothing more than a way of soothing the fear and desire for immortality.
That's how I tend to see it myself. Unfortunately, the materialists like to think that their own theories are the only valid or permissible ones and are trying to make philosophy into some kind of neo-Marxist dogma.
Aha, now this sounds like a religion :D a cult. In fact, in the past, I have seen some esoteric and magical secret society people call themselves as scientists too. :)
You were probably mixing with the wrong crowd in that case. As for myself, I have seen some scientists calling themselves scientists.
I think the question is interesting and possibly headway can be made. Does that mean that I am afraid of death and desire immortality?
I have see them on youtube. You seem have wild, dark and unhealthy imagination.
Without facts, concrete evidence and proof, no one should call themselves scientist.
Well, the pseudo scientists, esoteric people and the mystics could, and would, but no one would take them seriously unless they are the same crowd.
I don't think I have ever did. I am only a philosophy reader.
You are still too hyper imaginative.
Then how do you know that the people you saw in youtube were not scientists?
Common sense.
So, having common sense makes you a scientist?
Never said I was a scientist. They were calling themselves scientists.
But your common sense told you they were not scientists. So you are claiming that your common sense enables you to tell what is scientific and what is not.
I don't know. You might be in a better position to answer that.
How can headway be made? By what means can consciousness after death be measured?
I think I said it in the beginning. You seem replying even without reading the posts.
Scientists use facts, concrete evidences and proofs for their truths.
Common sense should tell you that fortune tellers are not scientists.
I don't think it can be measured at all, even in a living person. Other minds can be inferred though. And by examining the arguments for inferring other minds in uncontroversial cases (e.g. other humans) one might (or might not) arrive at the conclusion that similar inferences can be made about anything at all. I haven't rehearsed the arguments here, just indicating how we might end up thinking that corpses (or their component parts) have experiences.
Stevenson was a respected professor of psychiatry. His work was favorably reviewed in Scientific American. On what basis are you saying he was not a scientist?
Ian Stevenson - Wikipedia
I don't know who he is, but you should also bear in mind that there is a big debate, whether psychology can be classed as a science. You should read some Philosophy of Science books.
p.s. : Don't take everything as truths what Wikipeedia says, or anything in internet. First read the classics, then use your common sense and logic, rather than relying on the information from the internet.
Right. So you don't know who Stevenson is, you don't know that psychiatry and psychology are two different things, you don't know that psychiatry uses scientific and empirical methods, but your "common sense" tells you that Stevenson was a "fortune teller"!
You must have a highly unusual common sense then. A bit too unusual to believe it, to be honest.
I am not interested in Psychology or Psychiatry. I don't think I need to know who the Stevenson is, what his methods of researches were, to be able to tell what is genuine scientific truths, or religious type of claims on the minds and consciousness.
I don't think my common sense is unusual. No I don't agree with you.
I don't agree with you either. Your common sense must be exceedingly unusual if you can tell that Stevenson was not a scientist when Scientific American says he was. Maybe you should become a scientist and tell other scientists what science is.
One interesting thing about the Bushido code is that acceptance of death does not change "who you are." It is suggested that self awareness will become more capable and effective when you stop playing with the inevitable.
I probably wrote that sentence months ago, but I am sure that a lot of the ideas about immortality are based on the fear of death, and perhaps those who cling to life so strongly are those who are most afraid of the 'inevitable'. Really, I am not that afraid of non existence, because I don't have an all powerful ego. I think that the best ideal is not to fear death really, as there is so much potential suffering in earthly existence.
I still can't wrap my head around M = {M}
Assume M = {x} is the mind (M) is thinking about x
Steps to self-awareness
1. The mind is thinking about fire: M = {fire}
2. The mind is thinking about the mind is thinking about fire: M = {{fire}}
3. M = M
4. {fire} = {{fire}}
5. M = {M} = The mind is thinking about the mind
Before we proceed, I'd like to clarify that treating mind as a set seems reasonable if we subscribe to the view that the mind contains thoughts, fire in the example above.
6. M = {M}
Is such a set, M = {M} possible? In other words, is the mind capable of self-refelction? Can the mind contain itself? Not out of the woods yet, I'm afraid.
:ok:
I am not sure if I can think about putting the mind into sets. I am not even sure if mind can be contained, because even though it arises and is interconnected with the body, in some ways it is like a universe. But, while the idea of consciousness surviving physical death can be as problematic as it would involve us being dusembodied, like phantom beings hovering in a void, I do think mind can reflect on itself while alive. Of course, it is a part of the mind, as in the narrative voice of the 'I', which reflects, but this is the cohesive aspect of consciousness, as in personal identity. The rest of consciousness is probably more like a flow of incoming impressions, and the narrator has to sort out the jumble, or edit it. I think that this is the main element of mind involved in reflecting on itself.
Do you actually think that?
There may be some exceptions but yes.
Is a human being capable of self-reflection? Does one need to contain oneself like a box in order to be aware of oneself? Consciousness can survey itself and its contents, hence it is aware of itself in an act of reflexive awareness.
As explained by Plotinus, when consciousness (nous) is directed toward objects other than itself as such, e.g., thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, it is discursive reason (dianoia). When it is directed toward itself, it is self-awareness (noesis). The mind as discursive reason is not aware of itself except in a rudimentary or latent way. The mind as mind is aware of itself, there being no other object of experience in pure reflexive consciousness.
On the physical level, we are aware of ourselves as the physical body. On the psycho-mental level above the physical one, we are aware of ourselves as sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts. On the spiritual level above the psycho-mental level, we are aware of ourselves as consciousness, i.e. as that which is aware of body, perceptions, emotions, and thoughts, as well as of itself.
Body, mind, and spirit are just different degrees of consciousness. The more consciousness is aware of or dominated by "unconscious" objects, the less it is aware of itself. In everyday states of consciousness, consciousness is aware of material objects, etc. and only residually aware of itself due to identification with "unconscious" objects of experience. In higher states of consciousness, e.g. in meditation or contemplation, consciousness disengages itself from lower forms of awareness and self-identification and becomes aware of itself and identifies itself with itself. At that point, knowing becomes being.
For example, when we sit down in the cinema and watch a movie, we disengage ourselves from everyday awareness, we become absorbed in the scenery and activities taking place on the screen, we emotionally identify with the hero or heroine and experience his or her pains and joys exactly as if we were that person, and completely forget our true identity.
In realty, of course, we are not that person. We have our own identity. When the show is over, we slowly return to our normal sense of identity. Depending on how deep we became absorbed in the movie, it may take several hours to completely recover our normal identity and awareness. Now, imagine what would happen if we were to watch the same movie and go through the same identification process day after day, for many years. It would be extremely difficult to disengage ourselves from our movie self.
This is the only reason why it is hard for our consciousness to experience itself as consciousness and not as body, perceptions, thoughts, etc. However, as explained by Plotinus, part of our consciousness is fortunately always aware of itself, only that it is normally buried under a mass of lower forms of consciousness. And this enables us, through practices such as meditation and contemplation, to recover our self-awareness or true identity of ourselves as self-aware consciousness.
This is a problem taken up by Plato and Hegel. For them it is not a question of whether we are capable of self-reflection, but of the otherness of what is thought to be a self-same unity. In taking itself as its subject matter it is both what thinks and is thought about, subject and object. But where Plato saw this as an aporia Hegel thought he had solved the problem.
Following Plato, Plotinus attempts to unify by dividing.
If you read through the Wiki link Stevenson serious doubts have been raised about his work.
Bad analogy? May be, not sure. Is it correct to say my legs contain walking or that my fingers contain typing? Is the function of a dog's fur contained in the fur?
Yet, your eyes contain the images you see.
Should the mind be treated as eye-like (containing) or leg-like (not containing)?
Quoting Jack Cummins
Here's how I become self-aware: I think and I conclude there's a thinker and I = the thinker. Descartes' cogito argument if you couldn't make the connection.
Unless someone can give me good reasons to suspect that the state after existence will be different from the state of before existence.
:up:
Quoting Apollodorus
I've been giving this issue some CPU time as it were on my brain but the results are far from satisfactory.
I've been thinking analogically about it and if you're in the mood, I'd like some feedback.
Imagine two laptops - same manufacturer, same model. You and your friend both bought them brand new. For you and your friend these laptops, call them X and Y, are identical, so identical that if the two of you decided to swap them, it wouldn't make a difference to either of you. Note though that numerically, they're distinct e.g. you can number X as 1 and Y as 2.
You take your laptop and your friend takes his. You have different tastes and so while you install the programs Q and R, your friend installs S and T. Immediately, X (Q, R) acquires a unique identity, distinct from Y (S, T).
However, the identity X and Y possess is determined by things that they're not. Q and R are not X and neither is it that S and T are Y. X's identity should be based on things of X but is instead based on things not of X, the same goes for Y. What I mean to say is, insofar as we identify ourselves as minds, your mind and mine are indistinguishable (generic mind hypothesis) and they acquire distinct identities only when different sets of ideas are "installed" on them. Something's off about this, right? How can a thing's identity be determined by that which that thing is not? :chin: Are we thinkers or are we thoughts? If we're thinkers then our identity is numerically defined but not qualitatively i.e. your friend wouldn't be able to tell my mind apart from your mind. If we're thoughts then the paradox of the identity of a thing being based on that which that thing is not rears its ugly head.
:sweat:
Why assume "I" thinks?
Why assume I "thinks"?
Descartes confused himself (us): "the cogito" concludes nothing more substantive than thinking, therefore thinking happens which presupposes, not proves, existence.
Why, Fool, assume it's "self" you are aware of?
Indeed, some wrinkles that need a hot iron. At best, all I can reasonably assert is, "Thinking is going on." Does that mean there's a thinker doing the thinking? Is the TV in your living room actively generating the News you're absorbed in or passively receiving them from the cables? Suppose there is a thinker. Can I assert with complete certainty, I am it? God knows! Your guess is as good as mine.
The answer is found in Plotinus.
If spirit (nous), mind (psyche) and body (soma) are just different degrees of consciousness, then emanation, manifestation or creation is a process of diversification that may be illustrated by means of a triangle/pyramid or circle.
The apex of the pyramid or center of the circle is the One (to En) which is consciousness in a state of absolute unity.
Then, in descending order (in the case of the pyramid) or centrifugal order (in the case of the circle), there is increasing multiplicity according as the diversification process approaches the base of the former or the periphery of the latter.
At the top we are one single Consciousness (En), at the base or periphery we are many (polla) individual minds and bodies.
The Jews say 'why not'?
I don't say anything.
I just write
Until I die
I guess that I have always thought that it is the 'I' of consciousness which thinks, but it may be that it is not that straightforward really. The I is the identity by which we put it all together, and I wonder if even whether an actual ego consciousness exists, and whether this is equatable with the I or not. The 'mind' thinks but trying to work out the logistics is not that easy.
Gracias! I'm sure I'll get around to reading him one day. Let's hope I remember the pointers you gave me these past few days.
Quoting Apollodorus
:up:
Quoting Jack Cummins
You hit the nail on the head Jack Cummins. I remember the time when I really, really liked this girl (seems I'm a heterosexual) but the logistics was a nightmare. It didn't end well for me at all. :sad:
Maybe that’s the job of really, really likable girls, to create nightmares for (seemingly heterosexual) guys.
Consciousness seems to present a similar problem for the mind. As long as we run after it, it is not ours and not us. Only when we stop chasing and the mind becomes tranquil and simply observes (hence meditation techniques), that we begin to see a higher intelligence in us and us in it. That is when knowing ceases to be possessing something and becomes being it. So, yes, I think Plotinus may help.
Why does this necessarily have to be nothingness? This is merely a prevailing view on this small corner of the internet, with the main proponents (/fusty old men who live rather sad lives constantly trying to prove other people wrong on here) being @180 Proof @Banno. However, ultimately, it's just another idea about what happens after death - no one alive knows.
I have a fluid approach to the topic. At times, I side with the materialists, because I see disembodied existence as problematic, but I keep an open mind but I do believe that it may not be as simple as many think. My own acid experiment made me wonder if there was a lot more to reality than people may commonly believe. I am not convinced that anyone really knows the answers, and, who knows, the ones who argue so firmly that death is the end could be in for a shock. But, if some kind of life after death exists, let's hope it is good.
I would like the idea of reincarnation to be true,cbecause it is not a disembodied existence and it would allow for experimenting in having more bodies rather than just being restricted to having one. The theosophists think that the person goes into some kind of state after death, and, then, moves onto being born as a new life form, most probably another human being. I would like it to be true..
All thought is magic, you cretin.
Only cretins think so.
Hello, this thread keeps popping up. So, here I am wishing for reincarnation at 2.45 in the morning. But, at least I haven't created yet another thread.
I am a dreamer and a psychonaut, but with a strong interest in philosophical logic, so my head will probably explode,or implode, with it all. But, I try to keep a sense of humour about it all. But, I think that you and @180 Proof probably shouldn't get so cross with one another, because it is an issue which has been explored for centuries and philosophy can be fun. Anyway, my battery is about to run out, so I think I will retreat to bed.